


Take My Life, I'll Take Yours

by LadyArinn



Series: Tumblr Prompts Made Me Do It (Teen Wolf version) [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Peter Hale, Are assholes, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Murder, POV Peter Hale, Past Lives, Past Peter Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Post-Nogitsune Stiles Stilinski, Reincarnation, Soulmates, Spark Stiles Stilinski, The Hale Family, Young Peter Hale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 18:24:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17647616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyArinn/pseuds/LadyArinn
Summary: Peter Hale knows, very early on, that meeting his soulmate is not going to go well.From the tumblr prompt: "You don’t remember anything from your previous life but your soulmate does—your first meeting under the tree with the broken swing in summer, the way you smiled when you met each other again at the start of the school year, your eyes that were filled with such mirth and depth and beauty, even the way your hands fit together like missing piece of a puzzle—everything, even the gasps for air, the coarse little pleas, the way you stared with a look of betrayal until your bright eyes became nothing but a dull sheet of color at the hands encasing your neck in a vice grip."





	Take My Life, I'll Take Yours

**Author's Note:**

> I LIVE!!!! I haven't posted in forever, jeeze. There's a lot in the works but not much happening, writing wise, and work is DRAINING. But here we go!

Peter had his first memory of his soulmate at twelve, a little bit later that some of the kids in his class but early enough that he could lord it over enough of his peers to make it worthwhile. 

It was a quick memory that came to him as he slept, a burst of clarity amid the usual hazy forgetfulness of dreams. There was a few moments of hazy forest that he was running through because he was late for a party where he had to make a cake out of marshmallows and then it was summer and he could smell the heat, feel it in the way his shirt stuck heavy to his back and the way his hair curled heavy around his ears and the back of his neck.

He was staring up at a sky so blue it honestly hurt to look at, and then there was a deep laugh to his side that had him looking over and into amber brown eyes almost as bright as the sky as a voice he _knew_ in a way it felt he had never known anything in his life whispered to him, _“Was I too much for you, Wolf?”_

And he woke up, breathing hard and shaking, moving a hand up to the tightness in his chest as he tried his best to stop the tears that were rolling down his face.

A few hours later he was carefully composed and contained, sitting at the breakfast table eating the eggs he’d made in silence with his father when his mother comes into the room, her greyed hair carefully styled around her face and already dressed perfectly in her suit.

“I got my first soulmate memory last night.” Peter said casually, watching his parents carefully for their reactions.

His father never paused flipping through his newspaper, but his mother stopped looking through the fridge to shoot him a curious look. 

“What did you see?” She asked, and his throat almost felt like it was closing up to have her full attention on him. 

“Their eyes.” He said quietly, “And they called me  _ Wolf _ .” Which he thought might mean he had been a werewolf in his last life as well, which had a burst of pride flaring up in him. Not even Talia had had that from her last life.

“Oh.” His mother hummed, “Just the eyes? Regan, do you remember when Talia got her memory? Nine years old and she saw their whole face.” She sighed, and Peter scowled, squeezing his fork so tight the metal began to warp.

“Stop that.” His father snapped suddenly, and Peter immediately dropped the utensil with his heart in his throat, looking up into his father’s furious red eyes. “You don’t own those, so stop treating them like you do.”

“Yes, sir.” Peter said quietly, shrinking down in his seat under the harshness of his glare.

“Go to school.” He ordered, and even though Peter wasn’t even halfway done with eating and hadn’t made his lunch yet he hurried to comply, grabbing his backpack and walking down the long driveway to the main road, silently moving to the side so that his parent’s cars could move past him.

They had to go the opposite direction, so it didn’t really make sense for them to drive him. He was fine with walking anyways, it gave him time to think about his dumb soulmate and how he hadn’t seen their face, just their eyes.

Eyes that had been filled with amusement and affection, warm as they looked at him and slyly whispered  _ “Was I too much for you, Wolf?” _

Peter flushed, but blamed it on the chill in the early morning air as he shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket.

 

* * *

 

Peter sees his face for the first time when he’s fourteen, and its the worst thing that has ever happened to him in his life.

It had been a little over two years of flashes of memories from his last life, of amber eyes and brown hair, moles dotting skin and a laugh that made shivers race up his spine.

He’d seen how they’d met, or at least the aftermath, rain cold on his back, brown wrapped packages toppled all over the puddle and mud covered dirt road. And a voice sharp in his ear snapping,  _ “You could try looking where you’re going, you know?”  _ As mud and rainwater soaked into his good clothes.

He’d seen pieces of their day to day lives, a farmhouse on an almost picturesque landscape, mountains in the background, cows grazing in the fields, running in his beta form as a familiar laugh rang out through the trees. A patchwork quilt over a old bed, oil lanterns casting shadows along papered walls, snow at night as a warm body leaned against him and whispered in his ear,  _ “I love you, you know that, right?” _

He had someone out there, someone perfect for him, someone who was remembering what he was and who would love him before they even met and it was honestly one of the best parts of his life. The knowledge that no matter how his parents looked at him, no matter how much better Talia was and how she liked to pretend like he didn’t even exist, there was someone out there what would only ever care about him.

Who loved him.

And then Peter finally got to see their face,  _ his face _ , and it was like he was shattering into a million pieces as he watched as his hands from his past squeezed a pale throat. Those amber eyes were wide and terrified, tears rolling down into a tangled mess of the brown hair he’d been dreaming of since he was twelve, moles dotting paling cheeks, long eyelashes fluttering as he gasped,  _ “Please… Please…”  _

And he only woke up once those eyes had completely dulled, blood rolling down his hands and arms where his claws had dug into the throat he was crushing.

He threw up, curling over his trash can as he sobbed and gagged and  _ burned  _ with the knowledge that he had killed his soulmate. That there was someone out there, someone he’d thought was out there just for him, just for him to love and to finally be loved back and they would know he’d killed him. They’d remember one day, and there was no going back from that.

He howled from the lost, and wondered how he’d ever heal.

 

* * *

 

He’s different after that night, knowing that it didn’t really matter any more. He closes every minuscule opening he had ever allowed and everything just feels cold, if he feels things at all.

His parents die and he mourns emptily, feels more and more pieces of him decay as he stands by their graves and remembers his father staring at him as he died, holding his hand as he begged him to stay even as his father bled out from the bullet holes in his chest, his mother already dead beside him and the hunter giving his last gasping breath.

“I want… your sister…” His father gasped, blood on his lips, eyes red as the wolfsbane burned through his veins. 

“She’s coming.” He croaked, the hunter’s blood drying on his claws, knowing that she could feel their alpha dying and would immediately come running. “I’m here though.”

His father grimaced, and a large part of Peter knew it wasn’t just from the pain of impending death. “You’re... Not… Her... ” He gasped, and those were the last words Reagan Hale ever said, dying moments later. And of course Talia came, toting a toddler and a husband and a growing bump under her dress, red eyes glowing as she ran to where he was still sitting in the woods, corpses surrounding him.

Peter wondered that night, as Talia wailed and her husband comforted her, as he cleaned dried blood out from under his fingernails, if his parents had somehow always known. If they’d looked at him and seen he was wrong, seen he was the twisted sort of person that could kill their soulmate, and if that’s why he’d never been enough.

Talia moves in, and she treats him the same way she treats Laura, like a child she could boss around. Like a  _ toddler.  _ It makes a part of him miss his parents and how they had largely ignored him. He’d thought he’d appreciate some additional attention, but he doesn’t when it comes with a scornful tone and a glaring look as she orders him to eat differently, to walk differently, to clean differently, to just  _ be  _ different.

She’s getting on him as soon as he walks through the door one day after school, telling him that his backpack doesn’t go in the place he’s been putting it in the hallway since he had started going to school, that his shoes don’t go along the wall where they’d always gone and  _ why couldn’t he just pay attention and do things  _ **_right_ ** .

They’re yelling, barely restraining themselves from full on screaming and Peter knows his eyes are flashing. Johnathan is in the background trying to simultaneously mediate and stay out of it and it goes about the way you think it would from that description.

“I never wanted you to be my alpha!” Peter finally shouts, feeling out of control in a way he hadn’t in  _ years, _ and Talia’s eyes flare red with her fury.

“And I never wanted to be  _ your  _ alpha!” She roars, and in the silence that rings out like an ending, something final and broken.

Laura starts to cry, sobbing and wailing like she’d never felt more tragic and Talia huffs, glaring at him even as she turns to go to her child.

“Look what you’ve done.” She hissed, voice filled with a sort of hatred that Peter had never really been faced with. Anger, yes. Indifference, yes. But nothing like this and it was honestly crushing and he found himself baring his throat and letting out a small whine, submitting in the hopes that it would fix it.

Talia walks away without even acknowledging it, and Peter wonders if she can see the type of person he was too. If everyone could see.

 

* * *

 

_ “Oh, come on Wolfman,” _ His soulmate laughs from where he’s standing on top of a old, wood-board swing, tilting his body forward and back to move it. They’re next to a pond, sun filtering through the leaves of the trees and dappling his bare chest and shoulders with sun and shade,  _ “Don’tcha want to have some fun?” _

And he’s laughing and beautiful, a huge grin on his face and sweat rolling down the column of his throat and Peter—the person he had been—steps forward.

“I suppose.” He says, a little more of a drawl to his words, a little rounder on the vowels. And his hands are coming up to grab onto the other man’s waist, lifting him up to leave the swing dejectedly moving on its own as it’s previous occupant squeaked from the surprise. 

_ “What-”  _ He started to snap, but was silence as Peter brought him close to kiss him. He moved a forearm under the other man’s ass to hold him up a little steadier and to allow his other hand to run down his side to feel the warmth of his skin under his hand.

And oh, it’s good. He tastes like summer, something sweet on his lips from something that happened outside of the memory. From there it’s an easy thing to lay him out on the grass, to take him apart slowly. To kiss and suck and bite in all the right ways that has the body underneath him arching, has the man gasping into his mouth and moaning as their hands stroke along sweat slicked skin.

_ “Thomas,” _ The man under him gasps, pressing up against him.  _ “Need to feel you.” _

They hurry to tear off boots and jeans, to feel skin against skin and roll against each other toward completion panting and gasping and pressed so close they couldn’t even imagine separating.

At the end, when they’re both left trying to catch their breath, Peter— _ Thomas— _ lifts his head to smirk down at the dazed-eyed man, color high on his cheeks and hair a glorious mess.

“Come on, Little Spark, let’s try to cool down a bit.” And saying so he held the man close and rolled so that they went straight into the water.

Peter wakes up with a mess in his boxers and his heart in his throat, and closes his eyes to remember the look in the other man’s eyes as he’d looked up at him, dazed and in love. Maybe, if he thought of it enough, it would erase the the memory of the other time those eyes had stared up at him.

But there’s one thing that sticks with him even days later, one piece that doesn’t quite fit. Like a puzzle piece with a corner that doesn’t slide perfectly in place. Thomas had called his soulmate “Little spark” and sure, it could by just a nickname since couples did disgusting things like that all the time, but there was something about it. Something that made him think there was weight behind it, an importance to the name that he could feel even a lifetime later.

Peter had never been good with not knowing things, so he began to research. There had to be  _ something  _ out there, his curiosity refused to believe there wouldn’t be, and with the new baby at home he would do  _ anything  _ to not be near it. You would have thought after the couple he would have had a better grasp of it. But after being away from all of the  _ children  _ and having for the first time in his life freedom at college, the baby just existing near him felt close to torture.

So he snuck into the vault to peruse the books, knowing Talia would never look for him there because she hardly ever thought of the place, finding it too dark and dreary and boring to be of any interest. Peter couldn’t understand that bit of logic, all of the pieces of family history, important magical artifacts and the sheer amount of  _ secrets  _ held within enough to tantalize. And the books? Old books with cracking leather and delicate pages, books some people would have assumed long ago forgotten and lost and so filled with magic it almost hurt to touch.

He would never understand his sister, and if she was the sort of person who couldn’t care about these things he didn’t want to. 

It took a long time, months of looking and a part of him honestly not even expecting to find anything and then there it was, just a single page in a long, four hundred year old french book that had been translated from old Germanic.

_ The spark is an ancient power, rare and perhaps not even real. They are pure magical energy encased in human form, enough to topple cities if unleashed. They can be harnessed, used if properly trained, but the safest and easiest option may be to absorb it yourself if your are able. The vessel will die, but the majority of their power will pass to you in a form that your body can harness. _

And Peter knows then, of course he does. Power is seductive and even now Peter craves it, he knows what it can get you. He sees Talia and feels all the minute ways she can control him with her Alpha power, and knows that to have that ability is to have the freedom he now found himself craving.

He didn’t remember everything from his old life, it would likely be a long, long time before he would be able to, but he knew that the person he had been then had been hungry in the same ways he was, maybe even hungrier.

Apparently, hungry enough to murder the man he was meant to be with.

 

* * *

 

The fire happens, and he’s truly alone for the first time in his entire life. But he dreams of his soulmate and six years is enough to live through practically every moment together. From the moment the other man _ —Lou _ —runs straight into him after he had gathered all of his packages at the general store and ruined his best pair of pants, all the way to the moment where Thomas had wrapped his hands around his throat, tearfully confessing it was the only way he could be strong enough to protect the land he had been tasked to. It was the only way to get the power he needed to take control of the warring packs that surrounded them, to finally be the alpha he had always been meant to be.

He’d promised that they’d see each other again, in their next life. That he’d make it up to him but Peter didn’t think that was going to happen now, not with how he was. Not while he laid in a hospital bed, trapped in his mind burning and burning and burning again and again every day. It’s like the fire is imprinted into his skin and blood, the ashes permanently stuck to the back of his throat so that he tasted it with every breath.

He seethes every day, stuck in a bed unable to speak or move or even really think past the anger and pain filling his every molecule. And the night was almost as bad, dreams of his past life teasing him with freedom and power and pack and  _ Lou _ , all of it so incredible and warm and lovely that it made the pain of his current existence even worse.

He cursed the past him, wondering how he could have been so stupid to think that his life was bad enough to merit killing the person meant to complete his very existence. He had known nothing of pain, of desperation, of powerlessness. 

This was pain. This was desperation. This was feeling completely powerless and empty and alone, knowing that if he could get just a little bit more power he could make everything right. Power that should have moved to him as the most experienced survivor, not a frightened  _ child  _ who ran away from pack in need. Power that would have healed him completely in a matter of weeks, months at most if he had it. Power that would let him get revenge on the hunters that had killed his pack, the family he had hated but they had been all he’d had.

Now those pack bonds were dead and he had nothing but a steadily growing anger that mixed with the agony to become a sort of madness he allowed to take him over. And then, as the time dragged on, he had a plan.

He knows that Laura gone as far as she could run, trying to break their pack bond but there was almost an echo of it, enough for Peter to feel the distance like a physical burden on is chest. She was the alpha now and she had just  _ abandoned him  _ in a way even Talia would never had done even with all their animosity _ ,  _ just left and ran like the coward she was.

Just like her mother, who had looked at the bodies of their parents and a blood covered Peter and had insisted it was best to broker peace. That Peter was  _ wrong  _ for killing them. He hadn’t been wrong about that and decades later he knew with the same certainty that he wasn’t wrong about killing Laura, tearing her apart the way he had been torn apart the past few years, taking the Alpha power and finally smothering that pitiful, powerless part of him that had always existed.

Killing Laura is almost easy, honestly. And Laura was just the first step toward his revenge, toward making everyone responsible pay for what had been done to him. He had the power needed to do what needed to be done now, and he knew with the certainty of the crazed that there was no stopping him. 

There’s no plan for what comes after, what he’ll do when everyone’s dead. It doesn’t feel like there is room inside of him for anything but this all consuming need for revenge, because while he hadn’t loved his family they were his pack and they had been all he’d had.

It all just  kind of… Stops when he sees him.  _ Lou.  _ Stiles. Younger than he should be, they’d been close to the same age last life and it should have held true now too. But he’s a  _ teenager _ , not fully grown into his gangly limbs yet and too nervous and loud and just  _ too much _ .

He’s paler, obviously he doesn’t see as much sun as he did in their last life, but his eyes are the same shade of amber, and his moles are in the right spots. He’s beautiful and as Peter’s breath catches, as he feels just a moment of calm, Peter is filled with a bit of hope that he can have this.

He holds the boy’s wrist gently, turning and offering to bite that same place he’d always jokingly promised to put a mating mark in their last life. It had been and outdated practice even over 100 years ago, but it had been something he had playfully threatened to do. Lou had always grinned, a sharp baring of teeth that would have made any wolf proud, and threatened to do it right back.

But there was absolutely no recognition in those eyes as he was denied, nothing to show that he knew Peter outside of this life, that he knew what they were meant for each other. The only thing he really cared about was that Peter didn’t hurt the red-headed little  _ girl _ he had found, wandering around and smelling faintly of untapped potential and power, enough that he knew she would make his frankenstein pack powerful.

He lost himself again to the rush of anger, the sheer rage that filled him at the realization that in this lonely world he had woken to he had finally met his soulmate and he was a teenager who was more worried about a girl than him. His  _ date  _ to the  _ big dance. _

He wasn’t able to focus again, really, until he watched the molotov cocktail sail toward the air toward him to be met by an Argent arrow and see that it had been thrown by a very person he had dreamed of every night for the majority of his life.

_ How fitting _ , he thought, as Derek tore out his throat and ended it all.

 

* * *

 

The girl was a banshee, and as Peter takes is first gasping breaths of fresh air through the dirt still covering him from his grave he could almost cry from the need to laugh at his luck. At how ridiculous it all was.

There is no more pain. His skin no longer burns with the remnants of wolfsbane and fire, his every thought isn’t filled with howling agony and anger.

His mind is clear, his body is healed, and is chest is empty as he can feel the dullness that comes along with being a omega without a pack. His need for power is back, sitting where it always had in his heart, but so is the patience that he’d been missing through his last years.

He is whole and reborn, and honestly unsure of is next steps.

Derek is suspicious but as gullible as ever, still needing affirmation and what was left of his family, so needy and gentle beneath it all just as he had always been. Peter, at times, even feels guilty for how he’s using him. The children run around, so confused and pathetic that it’s sickening, and Peter watches and waits for the inevitable fallout. Always watching Stiles from the corner of his eye, wondering.

There’s not an attraction, the boy is too young for that. It’s kind of like looking at Lou’s baby pictures, if they’d existed back then. He was cute in a way that small creatures are, and honestly pretty annoying as he went off an what seemed like tree different tangents all at the same time.

He occasionally caught his gaze, the boy always so suspicious and watchful, and Peter always grinned sweetly back just to watch the aggravated flush bloom on his pale cheeks.

When the Nogitsune takes over, when it’s no longer Stiles in the boy’s body Peter knows he’s the first to notice and is thankful no one questions it. But he knows those eyes, knows the way his hands twitch and the way he sways side to side when he stands because there is just too much within him to contain. To Peter, the stillness and purposefulness of the demon is as telling as if the thing had gone ahead and started murdering people outright in front of them all. It’s almost laughable, really, how shocked everyone is in the end. 

He grasps for power and misses, again and again as the  _ infant  _ wolf he had created becomes a “True Alpha” and mishandles his power to the point of being offensive. It’s infuriating, and he’s getting close to a breaking point a couple years in when a cocky young Alpha comes in without a pack and with the idea of challenging the mystical True Alpha of Beacon Hills. Scott comes up with a few different flowery ideas of compromise and braiding friendship bracelets to show solidarity, and Stiles is away from it all more often than not, having discovered his spark after the Nogitsune. So he was frequently going off on is own in order to study and practice, and an effect of this was that Scott was without his counsel and as such so much dumber for the loss.

And maybe that’s why he finally did it. He barely ever saw Stiles, the children were more annoying than usual, and it was honestly so easy that it was too tempting to ignore. 

So while Scott and his joke of a pack were arguing and planning what was undoubtedly something dumb and destined to fail, Peter packed up the belongings he cared about, took what he wanted from the vault, and drove out to the invading Alpha where the boy was waiting for what he thought was a deceitful beta who wanted a new alpha. 

He didn’t think that for long.

He drives down to Los Angeles, drops his possessions off at his nice new apartment, and saunters into the police department with a earnest look on his face.

“Hello,” He says to the front desk attendant, “I think I’m lost.”

 

* * *

 

Poor lost Peter Hale, who had been comatose for years after a crazed woman burned his family alive, had woken up and wandered away in his confusion. Thought to be dead, imagine everyone’s surprise when he winds up alive and healed in LA, amnesia clouding his mind as he gets by by helping out at a local bookstore in the back. Then one day a box hit him in the head and he remembered who he was, immediately running to the police to reclaim his identity.

That’s the official story, anyways, and Trinity—an old friend of a friend of a friend from college and the bookstore owner who collaborated his story—nearly died laughing each time she heard it.

It takes a few years, but he asserts himself in the antiquities business once again, though now he has more freedom and opportunities than he ever had when he had been stuck in Beacon Hills as part of the Hale Pack. He can go off as he likes, now able to search for the truly rare, intriguingly magical items and books he’d always wanted to get his hands on. The Hale name carries weight in the right circles, and being an Alpha carries weight in others.

He opens a shop that specializes in magical and rare supernatural items, though there are ordinary things he can direct the mundane people toward when they wander in. He’s content for maybe the first time in his life, power filling him to his bones, doing what he wanted and what interested him. And it’s enough until the moment he comes out of the back at the urging of his assistant, a sly graduate student who could talk anyone into buying even the most expensive and useless of objects with a smile on their face as they thanked her. She was manipulative and a little bit evil, and Peter honestly felt she was a wonderful employee.

And there is Stiles.

It had been seven years since he’d seen him last, and he had grown so much since then. Had changed so much Peter could barely recognize him.

His sense of style apparently hadn’t changed much since he was wearing a black t-shirt and a maroon flannel pulled over it, dark skinny jeans that showed off long legs. But the pushed up arms of shirt revealed two sleeves of vibrant tattoos that almost glowed with magic, and his hair was actually styled in the messy sort of purposeful way that people his age seemed to like. He stood more confidently than Peter would have ever expected, having known him as a teen, and he looked  _ good _ .

At his arrival Stiles’ attention is pulled away from the cursed puzzle box Peter had housed in it’s own glass case, and Peter feels his breath stop at the look in the younger man’s eyes when they meet his.

_ Lou _ .

“Stiles,” He greets, like his hands aren’t shaking minutely as he slips them into his pockets. 

“Wolf,” He answers, saying it like Peter had always dreamed of and it like the floor drops out from beneath him. Stiles studies him a moment, eyes intense and the moment feels so important it almost feels like there is something keeping Peter from breathing. Then, Stiles inclines his head to the door.

“Take me to lunch.” He requests, and Peter never even considered saying no.

 

* * *

 

There’s a cafe down the street that serves a good tea and has a few different sandwiches Peter likes to eat, but even if the food they served was complete garbage Peter wouldn’t have been able to care because he needed to see what Stiles wanted as soon as possible.

But even with that urgency Stiles delays by talking inanely about some of the things the old Beacon Hills pack had gotten up to since he had left like Peter  _ cared _ . But once they were served and Peter had taken his first bite, like a disinterested waitress who just wanted to do the bare minimum as quickly as possibly, this was the moment Stiles decided to pounce. 

“When the Nogitsune unlocked my spark, he unlocked my memories of my past life.” Stiles said like he hadn’t almost caused Peter to choke on his panini. “I’d always grown up thinking I was broken, or a first-lifer and I hated it. I hated not knowing who, if anyone, was my soulmate. And then my first memory had to be of you killing me, obviously. That was a fun one to wake up to.”

“Stiles-”

“I thought it was another one of the Nogitsune’s tricks, at first. Something he had left with me, some kind of virus or something that gave me fake memories. I don’t remember when I finally realized they were real.” Stiles mused, playing with his chips instead of eating them. 

“Do you want me to apologize?” Peter asked carefully, not certain what his next move should be, or what sort of outcome he wanted from this. He just… He didn’t know how to process all of it, and that was the first time in a really long time he could say that.

Stiles throws his head back and laughs, and Peter feels a stirring in his gut as it hits him just how attractive Stiles is now and that shouldn’t be his focus right now. There was… There was just a lot to process.

“I’d rather not be lied to, thanks though.” Stiles huffed, something a little dark and crooked to his grin that Peter wanted to bite off his mouth.

“Then what do you want?”

Stiles watched him a few moments, eyes intent and gaze heavy. “I don’t know.” He finally says, and Peter knows he’s telling the truth. “I think… I wanted to meet you again, knowing what I know. I wanted to see if there was something different, now that I remember. And…”

Peter lifts an eyebrow in question, finally taking another bite of his food because he was honestly hungry.

“Well, I guess I need a job?” He shrugs, face tinted red enough that it was all Peter could focus on.

 

* * *

 

Stiles has changed in the years that has passed, more controlled and deliberate in the way he moved, more power behind his words and his stance. It was confidence, Peter realized as he took a moment to watch Stiles as he studied a small statuette that Peter had purchased from a disreputable dealer that Peter was blackmailing into giving him first go at all of his items. Peter was fairly certain the item was magical, and if the way Stiles was carefully handling it meant anything, he was right.

“I’m not sure if it’s a charm to, like, throw sparks and some fun visual spooky shit, or if the thing will eat me if I activate it. Honestly, I'm kind of fifty/fifty on it right now.” Stiles huffs, leaning back in his chair so that it balanced on two legs, eyes glowing faintly with the remnants of is magic and Peter’s sure he hadn’t felt this way in years, since long before the fire and everything that had gone along with it. And honestly with how foreign the feeling of his heart beating this quick tempo was, the feeling of is gut tightening and the need deep within him to  _ impress _ , a part of Peter wondered if he had never really felt like this before.

Had he never really been attracted to someone before? Or was it just that Stiles was special?

“What are we wanting it to be?” He asks, looking the little black lion statue over with a careful eye. He could get a decent price no matter which charm it was, but honestly a vicious attacking lion statuette was going to sell better than one that might glitter a bit.

“Leaning toward the eating one right now, because that would be pretty interesting.” Stiles shrugged. Peter nodded and slipped past the table for the iPad laying on the counter he had originally came for. He had some new items to post on the shop’s site, and it would be best to do it while there was no one in the shop because even now it still took a few moments for Peter to use the tablet correctly.

“What do you remember, from your time in your coma?” Stiles asked, voice deliberately casual as Peter momentarily froze.

“Everything, I suppose. Make sure to write your notes up on that before you leave, and don't use comic sans again,  _ really  _ Stiles.” He huffed as he turned to go.

“I read up a lot on what I could find about werewolf packs, you know. Being cut off from your pack without an Alpha like that, that’s a big deal. It’s driven some to madness.”

Peter can’t let this stand, and he whirls around to make sure Stiles knew just how  _ wrong  _ this obvious train of thought was.

“You can’t find an excuse for what I’ve done in this life or the last, don’t even try, Stiles. I’m not  _ misunderstood _ , and I would really prefer if you wouldn’t make me out to be the victim.”

“There’s not an excuse, I know that.” Stiles says with intent, both of them knowing he wasn’t talking about this life. “But I’ve had some time to think it over, and I don’t really fucking care. You’re not a good guy, Peter, I don’t think you’ve ever been. But newsflash, I’m not either if the fact that I’m  _ here  _ didn’t make that evident. And anyways, do you even remember everything?”

“Everything about  _ killing  _ you? Yeah, I’m pretty sure I do Stiles.” Peter snapped, and Stiles glared.

“No you don’t you  _ asshole _ . One of the packs had poisoned our well with wolfsbane and you were  _ dying _ , just like your parents had. Just like your brother and his wife had, and it was bad.” Stiles stood now, hands flat on the table as he leaned his weight against it, glaring harshly at the man across from him. “You were burning up from the inside and the most important thing became to get back at them, to kill the people who had tortured you and your family your entire life.”

“Oh, well, now I suppose everything if forgiven, isn’t it?” The sarcasm was palatable, and it made Stiles look like he was moments from punching him in the face.

_ “No _ , dickhole, dying fucking hurt. I’m not going to forgive you for that.”

“Then  _ what  _ are we doing here?” Peter asked, moments away from snapping, eyes flashing red and fangs dropping like he was an out of control and overly excited  pup _. _

“ _ Because _ —and if you would just let me finish we could be done with this—I killed you this time so we’re kind of even.  _ Because _ I’ve killed  _ dozens  _ of people this go around, and even if it wasn’t me in the driver's seat I was there and I felt it, felt that, that…  _ Goodness, _ and I’m not ever going to be able to forget it.  _ Because _ , you dick, I’m not a good person. Not any more, if I ever was one. And because I want to see what you’re like, this time, and I know that I could take you _ easily  _ if I wanted to. Body snatching demons are good for that, at least.”

Peter blinks, iPad held loosely in is hand, and he wonders what the next step is.

“What are you hoping to get out of this, Stiles?” He asks, hoping it will get him some clarity, and Stile groans and looks upwards in the apparent hope for divine assistance. 

“I’m saying that I hate you, asshole, but I also kind of don’t it's complicated and all tangled up like crazy so you should take me to dinner.”

“Dinner?” Peter asks, slowly like he’d never heard of the concept before.

“Yeah, woo me fucker, lets see what happens. And hey, if it’s a bad date one of us will just kill the other, I guess.” Stiles muttered the last bit, turning to go and grab a recently delivered package that may have held a possessed hair comb.

“A bit too soon, Stiles.” Peter called out, his heart only half in it because apparently he was going on a  _ date. _

**Author's Note:**

> And here it will end, because I am done. There were vague thoughts of writing more, but it's not happening at the moment. 
> 
> Will I post again? Yes!
> 
> For this story? Probably not!
> 
> Will it be soon? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHA


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